Hi all. First post on here.

I was part painting my car - yes, Halfords rattle cans - and had a very good finish on base coat. I went to clear coat the job about 45 minutes after and realised I'd only had 2 cans left but proceeded

After spraying clear coat and letting it dry for a couple of hours, it returned with weird dark orange/brown tiger stripes. Temp wasn't great (about 16°C) and humidity higher than optimal.

I used a sating black with satin clear. First coat was light and slightly streaky - 2nd coat medium wet and turned out in the pic below I'll get proper photos tomorrow in the light.

Is this because of high humidity and what's the best method to remove the clear and respray with sufficient cans?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/drdgMoBHm6e2TFUR7
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bts4zvupH4g8qPGS7

No offence meant, but if you only knew how many posts we get like this.

People using substandard materials (rattle cans) and then getting extremely poor results, followed by a post for advice on how to fix the mess.

Looking at the pictures, I would say you don't have near enough clear coat on there.

When using a proper spray gun with a 1.3 or 1.4 tip size, shooting a medium to high solids clear coat, we apply a minimum of 2 coats and more often 3-4 coats.

Clear is what provides protection of the color coat. It needs to go on heavy enough to flow out and lay flat.

I see that your in the United Kingdom, is that by any chance lacquer in those cans ?
Jay D.

One of the (many) problems with spray cans is that most have a spray pattern that is round, but hollow in the middle. Like an "O". So when you move the spray across a panel you get a double application in the middle but a very light application at top and bottom. To some extent this can be overcome with much tighter overlap on each pass but the fan is so small that it's very easy to get too much or too little. So banding is common.

To make matters worse, most automotive spray cans are acrylic (aka lacquer on the west side of the big ditch). Acrylic is sensitive to cold temperatures and where the substrate is cold it can give rise to blooming. It's also very sensitive to humidity as the paint droplets pick up moisture in the air and the result then is a finish that looks cloudy.

Acrylic has a fairly low solids component, typically 20%. It's usually recommended to apply with a fairly big gun (1.8mm) to get enough paint on the surface so that when the thinners (about 80%) evaporates off, you're left with enough paint to do the job, i.e. protect the substrate and have a consistent colour. Acrylic was also developed at a time when gun pressures were extremely high at 50-60psi, but this enabled the spray to be very fine so helping with even coverage and a nice smooth surface texture. Spray cans are nowhere near this and produce droplets that are quite large, again making quality work difficult.

Part of the solution is multiple light coats. Even with a spraygun, acrylic is usually applied in 7-8 coats. Changing direction with each coat also helps. But, at the end of the day you're trying to climb a greasy pole with spray cans, which is why most of the more experienced members here don't recommend their use.

very good my man, VERY GOOD! Hi humidity is the killer.
Jay D.